Chapter 1: The Pill and a Promise
The pink pill looked like a tiny, polished pebble sitting in the center of Danny’s palm. It was unassuming. Cute, almost.
“It’s just for a week,” Danny said, his voice a low, convincing rumble. He was sprawled on the thrift-store couch, the one with the springs that poked you in the thigh. The single bare bulb overhead made his blonde hair look almost white. “Think of it as method acting. The ultimate way to make Vanessa jealous.”
I stared at the pill. My heart was doing a weird, skipping rhythm against my ribs. “She won’t even recognize me.”
“That’s the point, man.” He leaned forward, the smirk playing on his lips. His eyes were that shade of blue that always seemed to be calculating something. “She sees me with some gorgeous, cool girl she’s never seen before? It’ll eat her alive. She’ll be blowing up your phone—my phone—trying to figure out who stole me.”
Stole him. The phrasing made my stomach twist. I wasn’t sure if it was nausea or a thrill. Danny had a way of making terrible ideas sound like adventures.
“And it just… washes out?” My voice sounded thin in the cramped apartment. The air was thick with the scent of last night’s pizza box and the patchouli candle he’d lit to cover it.
“Seven days. Then poof. Back to normal.” He nudged his hand closer. His fingers brushed mine. A jolt, electric and uneasy, shot up my arm. “Come on. Where’s your sense of drama?”
I took the pill. It was smoother than I expected. I didn’t need water. I just swallowed it down, a dry, decisive click in my throat.
Danny’s smile widened. “Atta girl.”
The change wasn’t a lightning bolt. It was a slow, inexorable tide. It started as a warmth in my gut, spreading outwards until my skin felt too tight, humming with a weird, cellular static. My bones seemed to lighten, my center of gravity dropping, pulling me inward. I heard a soft pop in my joints. My vision swam for a second, colors blurring into the neon beer sign in the window.
When it cleared, the world was different.
I was looking at the room from several inches lower. My clothes hung loose, then felt strangely tight in new places. I brought a hand—a smaller, finer-boned hand with shorter nails—to my face. My cheeks were softer. My jawline was… gone.
“Whoa,” Danny breathed. He wasn’t smirking now. He was staring, a look of pure, undisguised appraisal in his eyes. He got up and walked a slow circle around me. “Holy shit. It actually works.”
I tried to speak. My voice came out as a cough. I cleared my throat. The sound was higher. Lighter. “Danny?”
“Say that again.”
“Danny.” It was my voice, but filtered through silk. A stranger’s pleasant alto.
He laughed, a sharp, delighted sound. “This is insane. You’re a bombshell.” He stopped in front of me, looking down. I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “A tiny, perfect bombshell. What, like five feet?”
I just nodded, hugging my now-too-big t-shirt around a body that felt foreign and terrifyingly sensitive. My thoughts were a scrambled mess, but one cut through cleanly: I was undeniably, irrevocably cute.
“We need to document this,” he said, already turning to dig through a pile of electronics on the floor. “For proof. For Vanessa.”
“I don’t want a picture,” I said, that new voice wavering.
“It’s not for you, it’s for the plan.” He pulled out a small digital camera, the red recording light like a malevolent eye. He lit a cigarette, blowing smoke toward the ceiling. “It’s just us. For the archive.”
The next hour was a blur of awkward posing. He directed me with a photographer’s cold precision. “Turn your head. Look over your shoulder. No, look vulnerable. Think of it as acting.” He handed me one of his chain necklaces to fidget with. My new fingers felt clumsy. The metal was cold.
He poured us drinks—whiskey, neat. “To loosen up,” he said, clinking his glass against mine. The liquor burned a familiar path, but the body it warmed was not. I felt the tension begin to dissolve, replaced by a floating, pliable numbness.
“The bikini’s in the bag,” he said casually, nodding toward a shopping bag near the door. “I guessed on the size. For the final shot.”
The final shot. The phrase hung in the patchouli-scented air. I finished the whiskey. The warmth in my stomach was spreading, making my limbs heavy, my thoughts slow and syrupy. The initial terror was mutating into something else—a hazy curiosity. What did I look like?
In the bathroom, under the harsh fluorescent light, I saw her. Jessi. Short, tight curls of dark hair framed a face with wide eyes and a small, surprised mouth. My body, once lanky and familiar, was now all soft curves and dramatic lines beneath the cheap fluorescent light. The nerdy girl from a movie, the one the hot guy discovers. I didn’t recognize myself. But I couldn’t look away.
The bikini was red. It was cropped, high-cut, impossibly small. I put it on. The fabric felt alien against my skin.
When I walked back out, Danny’s cigarette stalled halfway to his lips. The silence was absolute, broken only by the distant groan of a Brooklyn subway train. He let out a long, slow exhale.
“Jesus,” he whispered. He stubbed out the cigarette, never breaking eye contact. “Okay. Now kneel here. In front of the couch.”
The direction was soft, but it wasn’t a question. The alcohol hummed in my veins, muffling the alarm bells. This was for the plan. For the archive. I lowered myself to the worn rug, the fibers scratchy against my knees.
“Look up at me,” he said, settling back on the couch. He spread his legs just a little. His athletic frame dominated my new, limited field of vision. “Good. Now put your hands on my legs. Just above the knee.”
My tiny hands, with their short, unpolished nails, looked childlike against the worn denim of his jeans. I could feel the firm muscle of his thighs underneath.
“This is the shot,” he murmured, picking up the camera. The red light blinked. “This is what kills her. The confidence. The possession.” His free hand came down and buried itself in my curls, not quite rough, but firm. Possessive. He guided my head, just a fraction, tilting my face toward the lens. “You look so fucking perfect like this.”
Shame washed over me, hot and immediate, followed by a confusing, deep curl of arousal. The two feelings merged into a single, helpless tremor. I was exposed, kneeling, on display. And part of me, the part liquified by whiskey and his approving blue eyes, was leaning into it.
He took the picture. The click was deafening.
Then he put the camera down. His hand stayed in my hair, his thumb stroking my temple. The other hand reached out and took my chin, lifting it so I was looking directly up at him, past the ridge of his jeans.
“You’re such a good girl, Jessi,” he said, his voice dropping to a private, honeyed tone. “Doing all this for me. For us.”
I couldn’t speak. I just stared up at him, caught in the trap of my own consent, in the neon-lit den of his making. The red light on the forgotten camera continued to blink in the shadows, a steady, silent pulse bearing witness.